The days of a simple baby shower party involving just family and friends are fast disappearing and, although the underlying idea of getting together with the mother-to-be to celebrate the arrival of the latest addition to the family is still very much to the fore, baby showers have developed into often very elaborate affairs.

Indeed, some baby showers today look more like the sort of thing you expect to see at a wedding reception and, as hosts are often very busy people, it is becoming more and more common to turn at least some of the arrangements over to the professionals. But just how much should you farm out and what sort of professionals should you consider hiring?

Well, the simple answer is that you can really think about farming out just about every aspect of your baby shower and hire professionals to take care of everything including catering for the event, handling the decorations, providing the entertainment and anything else you can think off. Just think about it. You could hire caterers, cake decorators, interior designers, bartenders, waiters, printers, musicians and so the list goes on. Indeed, arguably the more people you hire the more elaborate and more memorable you can make the event.

All of this will of course comes at a price and since the host will normally be footing the bill only she can really decide whether or not hiring in talent is a good idea. However, even if cost is not too important the host will also need to work closely with any hired staff and coordinating everything can be both time consuming and hard work.

The secret is to start by sitting down and looking carefully at each aspect of the baby shower to decide how best to tackle it. Many of the items on the list can probably be handled quite efficiently by the host herself, while others could be done very efficiently by family and friends. For example, if the host, a member of the family or a friend is a keen baker and cake decorator then they would probably be only too happy to make the cake and this would not only be nicer than having a 'store bought' cake, but would also be a lot cheaper.

There may well be some jobs however which could be put out to the professionals and so the next question is how do you go about finding suitable people. The traditional route has been to reach for the yellow pages but this is very hit and miss and you really have no idea at all what you are getting. If you can therefore you should try to hire somebody who you have used before and been pleased with, or somebody who is recommended by someone whose opinion you can trust. If a friend or colleague has used the services of a professional and is happy to recommend that person to you then you can be reasonably confident that they will do a good job for you.

Having chosen a particular individual, or firm, to work on your baby shower you must also be careful to ensure that they know exactly what you want them to do and here it is always best to put your instructions in writing so that there is no dispute at a later date.

Finally, just because you have engaged a professional do not simply assume that this is the end of the process and that you can leave it to them. Check up on them regularly to see that everything is progressing satisfactorily. If the cake does not arrive because the cake decorator has taken on too much work he or she will not get paid, but you will still end up standing in the middle of your carefully planned baby shower without a cake.

Parenting4Dummies.com provides information on a wide range of topics from planning baby showers to ordering specialty baby gift baskets